Buy/Hold/Sell - doubt we'll ever offer them
With this comment Ed saved the ethos of the site but it was close.
I shall address my remarks to those who asked for Buy, Hold or Sell recommendations in the recent survey.
What are you trying to achieve?
Wealth? You will never get rich if you allow other people to take your decisions for you.
So they make a comment that gets you in or gets you just in time. Great. Thank them. The next time, however, they may not be available and you will miss that chance.
Why did you subscribe to Stockopedia? To obtain a toolbox or hire a tradesman?
If it was the latter you will have to tell him your age, investment horizon and disposible funds. How do you expect the toolbox to know that?
Tradesman are smart, they take all this in when they visit your house. Full service brokers too and over time learn your investment style.
Do you favour Technical indicators over Fundamental ones?
If so you may have read the thread leading to the consensus that the 50 day Moving Average crossing over the 200 day was a reliable sell signal. Not for me, however because I use shorter time frames.How is the Stockopedia computer going to know that?
Maybe you favour Fundamental indicators and can wait a day until the Stockopedia computer is updated. So it is a profit warning and you have faithfully retained the lessons of the Profit Warning Seminar. Holy Grail? Wrong.The BooHoo saga started with a profit warning. Some do very well buying on capitulation.
So you follow Paul and Graham? What they say is not enough? It comes close to Buy, Hold and Barge pole to my mind. Maybe not Sell and to give you credit, the Sell decision dilemma was underligned.
So what is Stockopedia anyway? A retail investor biased website. As such It can only grow with more subscriptions so the bias will always be towards accessible information. Buy, Sell and Hold recommendations would draw in more new, time pressed, subscribers. Is it worth it? There is a limit to the number available. Far better, to my mind, to wait until some corporation sees the quality, snaps it up and increases the subscription price. I shall be happy to pay to get away from newspaper tips.
